History, Culture, Beauty, Wonder, People, Custom, Treasure and more for the Global Nomads

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Trip to Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona (November 2016)

On the way from Denver to Los Angeles, I took a detour from LAX to Phoenix and Scottsdale Arizona. Kristin landed and headed out to Rancho Palos Verdes, but I took another flight from LAX. This detour had three-fold purposes to meet up with precious people.

The weather was amazingly gorgeous as expected.

The primary purpose was to meet up with Dr. Ted Yamamori and his wife Judy. He was a pioneer in BAM and a guru in international development. He was global CEO for Food for the Hungry for 17 years. He was also the first catalyst at Lausanne Movement for the current BAM, then Kingdom Business. He is still actively involved in diaspora mission and development aid for North Korea. He is a teacher, author, pastor and leader. I gave a presentation about SfK Ministries in a hotel room and asked him to consider serving as the chair of the board. He was then 79 and politely declined. But he accepted to serve as Adviser to SfK Ministries. I was grateful. We had dinner together with his wife Judy. He graciously hosted the hotel room for me.

Another purpose of my visit to the area was to meet up with Paul Clayton, a colleague in BAM as Director of Missional Business Strategies at Mission 1 (One) that is operating in 24 countries. He later became President of Mission One as of January 1st 2017. We solidified our relationship further and promsied to see collaboration between SfK Ministries and Mission One.

Julie Magick is a former colleague of mine at Center Bank's Garden Grove Branch in California. Now she is a mother of 4 children. She is also a business woman running an e-commerce business with his husband Mike. We had a reunion in a long time with great joy. She promised to serve with me through SfK Ministries particularly in e-commerce.

About Me

Jeffrey is a Christian financial entrepreneur. He has been in the industry for more than 35 years, including 17 years as CEO for three banks in the U.S. and Rwanda. Recently, he was CEO for Urwego Opportunity Bank in Rwanda for more than five years until May 1, 2014. In October 2015, he founded SfK Ministries and serves as its CEO. His experiences are diverse from branch banking to project finance, from community banking to corporate banking.
Kristin is a registered nurse. She has been in various departments of nursing for 30 years.
They are happily married and have two daughters, Amanda and Joyce. They live in Rwanda and Thailand.